Free Republic

Ali Saleem may have devised the perfect, if improbable, cover for breaking taboos in conservative, Muslim Pakistan. In a country where publicly talking about sex is strictly off limits, Mr. Saleem has managed not only to bring up the subject on his prime-time television talk show — but to do so without stirring a backlash from fundamentalist Islamic clerics. And he has done so as a woman. When Mr. Saleem takes to the airwaves, he is Begum Nawazish Ali, a coquettish widow who interviews Pakistan’s glitterati and some of its top politicians. A real woman could not possibly do what...

BATAVIA, N.Y. -- Five parents who asked to transfer their children out of Batavia High School classes with a transsexual teacher have been denied, according to city schools Superintendent Richard Stutzman. The written requests did not meet the guidelines set out by the district, Stutzman said Tuesday without providing specifics. "That's all between the school, the teacher, the parents," he said. Other students were allowed to adjust their schedules because their requests were based on changes in their academic programs, Stutzman said. Fall classes began Wednesday in Batavia, 31 miles southwest of Rochester. Diagnosed with a transsexual disorder, the teacher...

Nature 422, 368 - 369 (2003); doi:10.1038/422368a Joan Roughgarden profile: A plea for diversity Joan — formerly Jonathan — Roughgarden rejects established evolutionary ideas about gender roles and sexuality. Everyone wants to discuss the parallels with her personal experience. But the science speaks for itself, she tells Virginia Gewin. Darwin's legacy is under attack. His fundamental theory of evolution by natural selection retains its status as the bedrock of modern biology, but a new generation of researchers is challenging his later ideas about evolutionary aspects of sex and gender. And this movement has just gained an eloquent spokesperson — albeit...

WASHINGTON – Was the U.S. Supreme Court fooled by a make-believe sodomy case in Lawrence v. Texas – one manufactured by homosexual activists to entrap police and ensnare the judicial system in a conspiracy to change the law of the land? That is the compelling verdict of a new book, "Sex Appealed: Was the U.S. Supreme Court Fooled?" by Judge Janice Law. It was in the Houston courthouse where Law presided as judge that she first heard rumors that the key figures in what became the landmark Lawrence v. Texas Supreme Court case actually invited arrest in a pre-arranged setup...